Boys' BB: Kinston headed back to regional finals

With 5:20 on the final clock in Kinston’s Eastern Regional semifinal game against top-seeded Trinity Wednesday night, the Vikings’ bench signaled for their backcourt to just hold it.

Jessika Morgan / Sports Editor

FAYETTEVILLE — With 5:20 on the final clock in Kinston’s Eastern Regional semifinal game against top-seeded Trinity Wednesday night, the Vikings’ bench signaled for their backcourt to just hold it.

The Kinston fans in Fayetteville’s Crown Arena began clapping and cheering.

The Vikings were up by 16 and held off the Bulldogs to advance to the regional final with a 54-40 victory.

The Kinston boys are headed back to the game for the eighth year in a row. They will face No. 10 Jacksonville Northside Saturday in Fayetteville.

Going up by as many as 20 in the fourth quarter, it didn’t start off like that for the Vikings.

Kinston (24-5) found itself down 5-0 to Trinity and didn’t score its first basket until five minutes into the game. The Vikings went on a 6-0 run and led 6-5 at the end of the first period.

Trinity’s (26-2) method was using lengthy, methodical possessions and forcing uncomfortable shots over its zone early on.

“We’ve got a lot of respect for what they do,” Kinston coach Perry Tyndall said of the Bulldogs. “We knew their three guards, we were going to have to contain them. (Jarrod) Rogers … had you worried sometimes.

“I’d see him in my sleep since I’d been watching all this film shooting balls from the volleyball line. We knew what we had to do.”

Once Kinston’s defense kicked into gear, it translated into offensive execution.

If the Vikings wanted to shoot over the zone, senior guard Andrew Lopez took care of that. He hit each of the team’s four 3-pointers, having a perfect night from behind the arc and finishing with a game-high 18. Aside from the first quarter, he opened each period’s scoring with a triple.

If Kinston needed to penetrate Trinity’s defense, that was left up to juniors Brandon Ingram and Darnell Dunn who had 15 apiece.

Add Mykel Hart’s six to the equation, those were the only four scorers for Kinston in Wednesday’s contest.

“We wanted to get stops,” Tyndall said. “We tried to press a little bit. We started to man up a little bit and we got stops. It was really a team effort knowing who to contain and what assignments we had.”

Rogers led the way for the Bulldogs with 15 points, including a pair of treys — one which he hit from nearly 30 feet out.

The shooter went five-of-13 on the night and didn’t make a 3-pointer in the second half.

And that’s what Kinston wanted.

The lead eventually hit 20 points on two occasions in the final quarter before Tyndall cleared his bench. The Vikings additionally crushed the Bulldogs on the glass, leading 31-17.

“It starts on defense,” Lopez said of the Vikings’ turnaround. “Once we got our defense going, we just ended up scoring on offense.”

It also began in the third quarter, when Kinston outscored Trinity, 20-9.

After Dunn drove to the basket and drew a foul at the 4:32 mark after the break during the Kinston rally, it forced Bulldogs coach Tim Kelly to use his first timeout.

“I think (Darnell Dunn) is a big part of that team,” he said. “He’s pretty darn good.”

Wednesday’s game was a rematch of the 2008 North Carolina High School Athletic Association 3A championship, where Kinston beat Trinity, 60-58.

“I couldn’t ask for a better group of kids,” Kelly said about this year’s team. “(Kinston) just made more plays than we did.”

Kinston and Northside (23-3) are scheduled to meet a noon Saturday.

“We know a lot about them and we respect them,” Tyndall said. “We’re looking forward to heading back that way on Saturday.”

Jessika Morgan can be reached at 252-559-1078 and Jessika.Morgan@Kinston.com. Follow her on Twitter @JessikaMorgan. Free Press Editor Bryan C. Hanks contributed to this article.

Kinston (24-5) 6 14 20 14 — 54

Trinity (26-2) 5 13 9 13 — 40

BULLDOGS FG FT 3PT REB TP

J. Rogers 5-13 3-6 2-6 3 15

H. Osborne 0-3 1-2 0-0 2 1

D. Mewcome 3-9 0-0 2-7 1 8

A. McGavic 6-8 0-0 0-0 5 12

J. McCall 0-1 0-0 0-0 0 0

Z. Branch 0-0 0-0 0-0 2 0

Totals 15-40 6-10 4-13 17 40

VIKINGS FG FT 3PT REB TP

Q. Ham 0-1 0-0 0-1 1 0

A. Lopez 6-9 2-3 4-4 4 18

B. Ingram 5-7 5-10 0-0 8 15

M. Hart 2-4 2-2 0-0 4 6

Darnell Dunn 6-13 3-4 0-0 11 15

J. Fields 0-0 0-0 0-0 1 0

M. Davis 0-0 0-0 0-0 1 0

D. Walters 0-0 0-2 0-0 0 0

Totals 19-35 12-21 4-5 31 54

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